Crevices
by Nerielle Tu
Summary: There are many words that can define their actions, many that can define their feelings, but there are none that can describe Allelujah and Marie together. 90 Drabble prompt challenge. Allelujah/Marie
1. Merry

Part of a series of 90 drabbles written for a drabble challenge. All drabbles will be Allelujah/Marie fit to the select prompt.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam 00.

Prompt 1: Merry

The word "merry" had always been too vibrant for Allelujah. He had never described a picture he was in as merry, and he'd never been in any situation where he could describe the situation as "merry". The word was almost too happy for him. He'd gained a family, friends, and the small but present desire to continue living. Yet words that seemed that happy, almost cheesy, seemed far too different from the person Allelujah was.

The word merry reminded him of Marie. On his days off four years before he'd been reunited with Marie he would walk around with little more mindset than to relax and exist. He recalled he had once ended up in his apartment watching an old holiday movie that was campy and cheerful and in it the word had been said many times. He had accepted Marie was long since gone at that point, but it still made his stomach clench. He remembered days that were uncharacteristically cheerful of a tortured child- ones in which he'd read books and laughed and smiled. Those were feelings he hadn't felt in a long time. That was a happiness which was true and simple.

It had been a long time since those campy movies, or since he had been a child. It had been about 5 years since he'd sat alone in an apartment. Now he was sitting under a blanket watching movies on television again. He didn't know what they were about- but they looked a lot newer. He remembered those old movies and watched the tv with a curiosity that didn't pertain at all to the plot or the characters. "Allelujah?" A voice had suddenly interrupted his train of thought. He looked up and saw Marie standing beside him. She sat down beside him with a drink for him and then looked at the TV. "Is it any good? You seemed caught up in it." He took the drink and then looked back at the TV. "To be honest, I haven't been paying much attention." Marie pulled up the blanket and put it around herself. She leisurely put her head on his shoulder and looked at the TV. "Well- let's see if it's any good then." He smiled. "Alright."

Within moments Marie was laughing under her breath. He fought back a smile himself as he turned his head to look at her. "What is it?" She looked at him. "This movie…it's so cheesy…" Allelujah looked to the screen for a moment. Out of nowhere he began to laugh lightly at it. It was incredibly cheesy and even worse than the campy films he'd seen years ago in passing. The room filled with a soft laughter and he could feel a fond feeling swell in his chest. He remembered the unfitting happiness in his childhood. For a moment he felt as if happiness was not unfitting of this grown Allelujah, who lived in rooms that echoed laughter, bedrooms that enticed pleasure and days that were filled with complete and true love.

On the screen the cheesy movie they'd watched came to its conclusion, with all the characters happily and cheerfully smiling. The main character he walked away with his family. As he smiled at the rest of the cast, his words were simple yet meaningful, "Have a Merry Christmas!" And in the movie filled with vivid colors there was not even half the happiness to equate the joy of Allelujah and Marie's happy, joyful, loving, and merry home.


	2. Remember

02 Remember

There would be nights in the past where Allelujah would wake with sweat covering his body and guilt wracking his conscience. The echo of his other self would sometimes greet him. Sometimes there would be nothing. Allelujah had lost himself in the guilt and pain he felt for his mistakes. It was so much so that he could seldom return to sleep after having those nightmares. It was bad enough to remember every day. It was another story to not even escape his conscience in his sleep. Even more unsettling was the ever present realization that Allelujah was alone. He had killed everyone important to him, abandoned the rest, and had led himself to a life where his sole purpose was to make the world answer for it.

It was almost as if that sole memory had been enough to define him completely.

When Allelujah had been captured he'd regained a momentary wish to live. The desire had soon fled him and he'd found himself in a pointless existence. He had found a family in the form of the Ptolemy, but the only thing that filled his thoughts was Marie. With those thoughts came the constant reminder of how he left her behind and what transpired afterward. Being held in captivity only forced a silence on Allelujah that made him think even more. It didn't help that his other self's constant presence, while certainly not wanted the majority of the time, had come abruptly and thus been hard to adjust to. He couldn't enjoy his freedom and solitude of mind in an empty silent hell like this.

Still, there was something about the memory of Marie that graced him with comfort.

When Allelujah woke that night from a memory he was covered in sweat. It had been a year since he'd been in captivity and a year since he'd woken up from those dreams. He tried to catch his breath as he looked at the ceiling and half expected a voice to greet him- half expected there to be a silence that took him over. Instead there was just a hand that suddenly put itself on his arm. He looked to the side with a start and saw a woman with long silver white hair and it took him a moment to register that he was not in an apartment where he spent his days off or in an empty quiet room where he was bound to a chair. He was with Marie. And for once his voice didn't escape him, fear didn't consume him, and there was a small feeling of relief as he awoke as opposed to the ever present hatred of himself.

"Are you all right Allelujah?" He looked to her and saw the blanket at her waist, her chest bare to him, and he smiled at her. He pulled her into an embrace. "Yes, Marie. I'm fine…" Unlike before, Allelujah had better days to remember.

He held Marie in his arms and felt the lingering feeling of the desire to live and protect wash over him.


	3. House

O3 – House

When they'd had their first house, the kind of thing that wasn't fancy so their limited funds could supply it, they had marveled at it with curiosity. Despite apartments and the Ptolemy on Allelujah's part and Sergei's house on Marie's there had never been a solidified form of home for them. So despite the fact that their house wasn't impressive in the least, it had meant more to them than a lot of things. It had been the best kind of comfort they'd been denied for a long time.

There had been a place where they were meant to be.

They had left that house after awhile. In their lives they'd realized there had never been a real meaning yet. There had been small nuances of happiness but there had never been the true meaning they'd left their friends to find. But when they left that house they took each other's hands and looked at the other with a smile. There was a small recognizable feeling of belonging there in the warmth of the other's hands.

They knew then that as long as the other was with them there was always a place to belong.


	4. Devil

04 Devil

There had been a time in his life when Allelujah was never alone. As much as he would've liked to quietly slip into his thoughts there was always the fear that the wrong thought would trigger the unkind words of his other self. If he harped too strongly on the mistakes he made his other self would cackle or chastise him. If he had the wrong thought Hallelujah might simply chide in. He usually found himself in a state of silent angst. He could never move on from the pain he'd suffered through because of his guilt and his fear of even attempting to reconcile with his emotions. If he did, Hallelujah might simply intervene.

Allelujah hadn't thought about the idea that being in the presence of someone was a good thing. Typically he'd learned to keep to himself and rarely open up. Friends and comrades were one thing, but in the solitude of his room or his apartment he could only find it chilling that his personal demon would be there all the time. There was nothing he could do to combat this.

Suddenly one day there was silence.

Allelujah had muttered the word "Hallelujah…" four years ago, and it had been a terrifying yet liberating experience. There was nothing to fear and yet there was also the worrying idea that he would be useless without Hallelujah. His demon was dead, and so was his company. There was no one there in the deep and empty respects of space. He had spent 4 years alone pondering rotting away for the simple sake of his crimes.

But there in the silence Allelujah learned the one thing greater than fear was a reason for fighting. There was something stronger than guilt or hatred, and it was the undying wish to bring someone he loved happiness. Even without a voice in his head the ever present echo was that of his desire to save Marie, to protect her from being used- and to give her happiness. With no demons to haunt him he was finally free to see that there was something to continue to live for.

But what surprised Allelujah is when four years after his demon has disappeared he simply reached into the depths of Allelujah's mind and uttered the same notion Allelujah had believed in ever since he'd been freed from the facility- "Focus on Marie." His demon with a twisted smile and sinister laugh combined with him for true sentience, true perseverance. In the perpetuating silence he had learned a reason to live, and in the moment the silence was broken demon and human combined into one entity, who's only reason was to protect what he loved.


	5. Hope

05 Hope

Hope had come sparingly to Allelujah. When he had been in the Super Soldier facility he felt it a lot. Even in a bleak and dismal place like that there were still smiles between him and someone he cared about. Looking at it now it had been a childish dream to have hope in such a place. That hope had been crushed when he had to kill his brethren simply to survive. Not only that, but he lost the one person who brought him the most hope he'd ever discovered.

Since then, it was not hope that sustained him. It was his other self, dragging him through the mud and killing when he could not. Sometimes it was he himself crawling through the mud. There he would find glimpses of anger and regret and know that he was probably a monster, probably someone not deserving of life. He could only curse the world and demand that it answer for everything. Yet there were only curses and hatred to be had as he did this, soaking his hands in more blood than he could ever atone for.

Where was hope?

In every inch of his body he felt it now. He felt it as it crept through every crevice and every thought and he knew that ishe/i was hope. He sat alone in the dark for year after year and every breath he took uttered the unfair notion that Marie was alive and he'd tried to kill her. Yet the moment he'd been liberated there was purpose. Her existence made it relevant to survive, her happiness made it relevant to stay by her side. He'd yelled, whispered, moaned, and breathed out her name in every fashion and yet with every moment there was a new burst of hope because she was alive. When she fell against him after seeing him for the first time, as Marie, in 14 years, when she sympathized with his pain and forgave him rather than hated him as she feared he would, and when he breathlessly took her hand and their lips met- there was hope. There was meaning in every form of the word.

Marie was hope.


End file.
